Periwinkle, a Berlin-based startup, is pitching a practical way to break free from centralized social media controlled by Big Tech. Rather than asking people to jump straight into running complicated infrastructure or navigating a patchwork of decentralized apps, Periwinkle lets you create a social media identity on your own domain—so your account is tied to a web address you control, not a platform that can change the rules overnight.
The service is built on the AT Protocol, the open-source technology behind Bluesky. In simple terms, Periwinkle provides the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that makes it possible to run your own social presence while still participating in the broader AT Protocol ecosystem. That means your handle can live on a domain you own, and your data—posts, followers, and profile—can be stored on a Personal Data Server (PDS), a key component of the AT Protocol design.
Periwinkle’s main pitch is convenience without giving up ownership. Setting up and maintaining a server is a deal-breaker for many people who like the idea of decentralized social media but don’t want the technical burden. Periwinkle handles updates, backups, and monitoring, so users can focus on posting and building a community instead of managing infrastructure.
Founder Charles Blumenthal says the idea came from noticing how misunderstood the AT Protocol still is—and how much power a small number of extremely wealthy individuals can hold over global communication. The larger promise, as he sees it, is portability: if you decide to leave one social app for another, your identity, followers, and content should be able to move with you instead of being trapped inside a single company’s system.
Momentum in the AT Protocol world suggests there’s growing interest in this approach. Bluesky has surpassed 43 million registered users, and Periwinkle is betting that more people and organizations will want the next step: greater control over their online identity and personal data, without needing to become system administrators.
Periwinkle offers both free and paid plans. There’s a free tier with 500 MB of storage for people who want to test the service. Paid plans begin at $4 per month for a Basic Plan that includes support for five handles, 5 GB of storage, real-time backups, and a choice of hosting location in either the EU or the US. Higher tiers include a $14 per month Pro plan with 25 GB and a $30 per month Team plan with 50 GB, each adding support for more handles, longer backup retention, and service-level agreements. The company also offers custom enterprise options.
This kind of setup could appeal to anyone who needs tighter control over their social presence—such as businesses, public officials, political candidates, and organizations that want their accounts to be more resilient and less dependent on a single platform’s decisions. Looking ahead, Periwinkle plans to add features like automated post deletion and archiving tools to make long-term management easier.
For now, Blumenthal is running Periwinkle as a solo founder and self-funding the project, though he says he’s been in discussions with European investors. Longer term, he hopes to expand the team with another engineer and dedicated support for communications and marketing.
